Asia Minor Then -- and Turkey Now...

The history of
Asia Minor dates back to human
settlements of the Neolithic times of over 10,000 years ago, followed by 1,650
BCE when the
Hittites , settled in an area in present day southwestern
Turkey-the former
Anatolia. The Hittites emigrated from the area east of the
Black Sea and southwest of the Caspian Sea in today's Iran. According to
genetic bio-markers, almost all European and Asiatic peoples trace their
origins to Central Asia (today's Kazakhstan) via a common ancestor of about
45,000 years ago. In the 12th century BCE, the
Assyrians of
Mesopotamia overran the Hittites. The small seaboard states in southwestern
Asia Minor then fell to the
Greeks who colonized the entire
coast about the 8th century BCE. Legend has it that Greeks first laid siege
to the city-state of
Troy after the
Trojan War. In 563 BCE
Croesus mounted the throne of
Lydia in Asia Minor and soon brought all the
Greek colonies under his rule.

Ethnographic map of Anatolia from 1911

Croesus was overthrown by
Cyrus the Great of
Persia, also known today as
IRAN (the indigenous name of the nation since antiquity), of the
Achaemenid Empire in 560 BCE, followed by the capture of most Asia Minor and
Greece by the Achaemenian's
Darius I in 512 BCE when ruled for a brief period. The Achaemenian Empire,
at its zenith, governed over a vast federated system of nearly 30
quasi-autonomous city-states, allowing each to preserve their own indigenous
cultures, and spanning from China and India in the east, across central Asia,
the Caucuses and Asia Minor, all southern Persian Gulf southern states of the
Arabian Peninsula to the south, and to Greece and Egypt in the West. Cyrus and
Darius are credited by Herodotus and Xenophon the Greek historians of the era
with having written the first
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Cyrus is also cited with much
reverence in the Old Testament as he re-conquered the Jerusalem from the
Assyrian occupiers and invited the people of Jewry to return and rebuilt the
temple.

The major
trade routes passed through the Asia minor
region, and a pony express carrier service, which had been earlier
set up by Darius I between Persepolis and Susa and Lydia, was operating. Two
hundred years later,
Alexander the Great spread the Macedonian-Greek hegemony militarily over the
peninsula which Hellenized it for the most part. The young Macedonian Alexander,
who was denigrated as a barbarian by the state Athenian elites but later
retro-embraced as one of their own, failed to Hellenize the Persian Empire, as
far east as Bactria or Arianna (today's Afghanistan). This inextricably led to
the integration of indigenous cultures nearly 15,000 years in the making and the
newly arrived cultures of the Aryan Medes, Partians and the Persians.

Following the conquest of Asia Minor by the Romans
in the 2nd century BCE, the area had sustained relative tranquility,
notwithstanding an "on and off" local in-fighting and skirmishes among the
feudal powerhouses throughout the following one and a half millennium. The
Romans engaged in a myriad of battles, with losses and gains, against their
Eastern neighbor the Persian
Sassanid Dynasty. Under the
Byzantines which followed the East Roman Empire, Asia Minor became a Bastian
cradle of
Christianity and the guardian of Greco-Roman cultures. In fact, the
"Vatican" of today's three hundred million eastern Christian orthodox, headed by
their archbishop Bartolomeu, and despite paramount restriction by the current
Turkish government, is still in a compound of seven buildings in Istanbul. As
the power of the Byzantium declined, Baghdad Omayyad and then the Damascus
Abbasid caliphs penetrated Asia Minor with the first partial Islamification and
cultural Arabization. However, numerous subdued and at times covert clusters of
Christians, the Roman Catholics, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Greek
Orthodox denominations were present in almost every corner of the vast territory
that stretched from less than a mile into the European continent and stretching
eastbound in Asia a 600 miles to the neighboring Persian Empire. The Persian
Mithraism and
Zoroastrianism as well as Judaism, Gnosticism, Agnosticism and mystical
spiritualism had retained followers in the regions too. In fact, Islam had
gradually lost most of its initial lustrous presence to the various Christian
church-states until the 11th century when the trend was once again
reversed, presumably driven by mysticism. The sectarian in-fighting of the
Christians for self righteousness motives played a dogmatic role in such
undercurrent Islamic revitalization. A Catholic priest once rushed to a Muslim
scholar of juris prudence hoping to intimidate him by breaking the news
to him of the sudden death of the Caliph of Baghdad, as if Islam had ended. The
Islamic scholar simply responded, "The loss of an earthly leader would not
change a thing for me or my community as even Mohmammad died when his time came;
besides, I would not be talking had my God been hopelessly crucified to death!"

This same era, 7th through 11th
century, many of the early Christians in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain, Portugal)
and Sicily had by and large converted to Islam that lasted through the last
Islamic Moors dynasties of the late 15th century. Parallel with the
Iberian Peninsula reverting back to Catholicism and mass exodus of Moslems and
Jews to Asia Minor that was concluded at the end of the Spanish inquisition of
the late 15th century, there followed a simultaneous reverting to
some Catholicism by the missionaries but mostly Christian orthodoxy as this time
evangelized by the Greek and Russian church in Asia minor. In fact, the Moslem
communities between the late 9th and early 12thcenturies
were sparsely found.

Attila the Hun is said to have come westward from Central Asia, thus the
country Hungary in the 5th century. Then in the period beginning in
the early 11th century and continuing through the late 14th
century, the continuous westbound migratory forays of the Turkic tribes (Mogul,
Tatar, Oghouz, Seljuk et al) of Central Asia, pioneered by
Kublai Khan,
Genghis Khan and
Tamerlane and their descendent dynastic successors such as the Seljuks in
Persia, continued. In fact, the Mongols, who despite their initial wrath
savagery had soon become devout Moslems under Persian influence of not only
religion but far more profoundly under Persian literature, culture and protocols
of public administrations, set up dynasties from China to Eastern Europe. Their
Persian spiritualist confidantes such as
Rumi, and the
Molavi mystics, whirling dervishes, the Mongols then established their
capital in Konia's Asia Minor and later in Constantinople (Istanbul). Asia
Minor had also been enriched with the presence of Jewish (Sephardic)
communities, who had along with Moslems been pushed out of the Iberian Peninsula
as it peaked at the Spanish Catholic Inquisitions in 1492 (the same exact time
as the Columbus's expeditionary mission to the new world.) Some Jewish scholars
even converted to Islam and took the theological lead in discourse against the
Christian clergy in favor of propagating Islam (Maimonides
was the royal court physician of
Saladin.)

The ethnic and governing presence of Persians and
their then mild form of Shiite Islam enriched with the Persian literature,
poetry, logic, ethics, etc. was of paramount influence in Asia Minor. Most
literature of the region through the 16th century, as well as the
official governing language through the 17th century, was Persian. A
similar dual use of Persian language persisted in India through the mid-20th
century as well. In the early 15th century and after the re-Islamization
of Asia Minor, this time combined with linguistic Turkification, the precursor
to Turkic nationalism of the 20th, the
Ottoman
Turks conquered the peninsula and made
Istanbul (the ancient Constantinople) the capital.

Late in the 15th cnetury, the Safavid
Dynasty was established in Iran by its founder, the zealot AZARI mystic Shiite
from Ardabil, Shah Safi-eddin and his staunch successors, son Shah Esmail and
great grandson Shah Abbas. There is historical evidence that the Ottomans were
again overrunning Europe to re-Islamcize it for the second time in less than
1,000 years after first time. The first Islamization by the Arabs and Arabized
North Africans of the Iberian Peninsula had occurred in the 8th
century. The Italians and the Vatican instigated a self serving diplomatic
dialogue with the
Persian Safavids equipping them with "hot weaponries," guns and cannons, so
that the Parisians would, at their behest, open up an effective eastern front
against the Ottomans. This impelled the Ottomans to spread militarily and
logistically too thin on both fronts, thereby preventing them from going beyond
the eastern gates of Vienna. The Ottomans retreated to their western controlled
territories of Albania and Bulgaria. During this relatively short historical
period, the nature and rituals of Shiism were fundamentally transformed to look
and sound fundamentally distinct from Sunni Islam, by adopting certain rituals
from medieval Catholicism. It was the first time in Iran that the religion was
officially used as an effective political tool to make the Persians distinct
from their Turkish and Arab step brethrens.

Etymologically speaking, some scholars believe
the origin of Azari dialect spoken in east Anatolia, northwest Iran and Aran
then the Iranian province located north of the
Araxes River in the caucuses , is traced back to Avesta, the holly book of
the Persian Zoroastrians. There are nearly five hundred
Old Pahlavi root words still used in this Azari dialect, much more in any
other dialects of modern Persian language spoken in a vast region by 150
millions. The Azari language has been enriched with tens of thousands of middle
and modern Persian words, in much the same manner that Persian has been enriched
with considerable Azari, Turkish and Arabic words. Amongst all the
civilizations stretching from China to Eastern Europe, Iran has generated some
of the richest Persian poetry and literature unrivalled by most nations. The
masterpieces and treatises by Ferdowsi, Khayyam, Rumi, Hafiz, and Sa'adi to name
a few, have not only preserved the Iranian cultures, but they have also
influenced other adjacent languages and cultures in the Indus valley, central
Asia and the Caucuses, Asia Minor, the Persian Gulf region and the Arabian
Peninsula.

In retrospect, the Safavid dynasty and its
struggle against the Ottomans was also the awakening of the Iranian nationalism.
It transpired in much the same manner as when the Aryan and Mede sub-stocks,
moved from the Aral lake region around 3,500 years ago. Settlers from as far
west as Ireland and as far east as northern India including Iran (Persia), were
quite diverse, so also were the sub-ethnic Altaic and Turkic tribes, with their
numerous dialects, moving into western Iran and Asia Minor around 1000-1500 CE.
Korea, Mongolia and the 50 million current Muslims in Northwestern Xingjian
Province of China, as well as tens of millions of people of the newly
independent countries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan do
have their own sub-Altaic Turkic dialects, albeit some with Mongolian
Turkic phenotypes and the rest of while complexions. The Turkish (Altaic)
language and culture in east Asia Minor was then substantially infused with
Kurdish, Armenian and particularly Persian influences, while the western
versions of the language were more under Roman, Syriac, Arabic and Greek
influences. Asia Minor, like a number of similar historical nations in the
region, such as Mesopotamia and Iran (Persia), has been the crossroad of
transmigrations, trade, cultural and ethnic intermingling and ample war
skirmishes. This region has again, like Iran, become multi-ethnic where the
notion of "pure" race and thus egocentric superiority for any nation is absurd.

Clearly, Asia Minor, over nearly three millennia,
has undergone an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious immersion and
integration of the Hittites, with Greeks, Romans, Persians, Arabs, Armenians,
Slavs, and finally with the various sub stocks of the Turkic tribes of the far
east as recent as the past millennium. Today, the peoples in Turkey are
integrally polymorphic, and the culture is truly multi-ethnical, having genes
from all the above. The Latinized so called Turkish language by Ataturk the
founder of modern Turkey, having its roots in the Altaic Turkic dialects of the
Far East, has adopted words, phrases and bits of syntax from Persian, Arabic,
Greek, Armenian, Romance, Russian and Slavic language families. In fact, the
Azari language, spoken in northwestern Iran, eastern Turkey and in the newly
established country of Azarbaijan (historically known, as Aran, then the
provincial region of Iran), situated in a region in the Caucuses which was an
integral part of the broader Iranian territory until the late 18th
century, when it was turned over to and annexed by the Russian Tsars according
to two hegemonic treaties imposed on IRAN, bears Iranian linguistic influence
and almost an identical culture. Again, etymologically speaking, languages in
this region, namely, the Persian, Azari Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Assyrian,
Arabic , Kurdish, etc. have each exchanged influences to varying degrees from
Altaic, Persian, Armenian, Arabic, Greek, Roman, Indic, Latin, and Slavic
origins and vice versa. Let us listen to this
music and appreciate how its melody has been enriched by all the above
ethnicities.

The
Ottoman Empire lasted until 1922 when the modern
Turkish Republic under
Kemal Mostafa Pasha (Atatürk) was founded. During the World War I, the
Ottomans took sides with the losing Axis, and the Armenian genocide,
which is said to have led to the mass annihilation of up to 1.6 million
Armenians along with some Assyrians, occurred. Atatürk set up a
government anchored on Turkish nationalism, on the separation of mosque and
state and safeguarded it with a constitutional provision for a strong military
intervention when necessary. The new capital of
Turkey has been
Ankara since 1922. Atatürk's advocacy for Latinizing the Turkish language,
although well intent as it has endeavored to bring the Turks closer to Europeans
with mixed results, has nonetheless, deprived the future Turkish citizens from
connecting to their past literature written in Arabic scripts. A substantial
amount of such literature is historically rooted in the Persian language. Very
few Turks if any could read the Rumi Poetry as inscribed in Persian in his
mausoleum in Konia. Paradoxically, after one hundred years of struggle to give a
so-called non sectarian European identification to the Turks, the rate of
Islamic fundamental resurgence and re-discovery of past cultural identity, and
as evidenced by increasing number of women wearing Hijab and despite restriction
and discriminatory practices by the authorizes, is among the fastest growing in
the Islamic world. Moreover, despite their continued bloody struggle, it is
only in recent juncture when the
Kurdish population of well over ten millions has been allowed to officially
call themselves as Kurds and speak their own Iranic derived dialect language in
the public.
Croatians ,
Ossetians and Albanians are three distinct examples people of plausible
Iranian heritage. There is even a distant
Irish-Iranian connection.

Avid readers of the historical chronology of this
Asia Minor may refer to authenticated internet based and library resources for
further information. There is a worthwhile book, The Decline of Medieval
Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of (re-)Islamization from the 11th
through the 15th Century, by Speros Vryonis, Jr. that can be
helpful. Currently the Eastern Orthodox Vatican equivalent overseeing 300
million parishners, and limited to only seven building and its
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Archbishop
Bartolomeu, is still based in Istanbul.

My purpose is to present perspectives in their
historical context as they have transpired in Asia Minor and its surroundings.
In order for any nation such as Turkey to be fully integrated into the whole
family of nations, it has to come to grips with its past, irrespective of how
cruel it has acted and acknowledge the mutually beneficial cultural exchanges
with the Greeks and the Persians (Iranians). As much as people in the [Islamic]
world may boast about their national identity or ethnic superiority, let's bear
in mind that the Christian right in the west as led by American
fundamentalists and neocons and envisioned by the
New American Century Project consider the rapid growth of Moslems worldwide
a ONE serious threat to their supremacy. Nationalism, so long as it does not
deny other complimentarily nationalisms and honors cultural commonalities
through internationalism, is valid; otherwise, it plays right into the hand of
exploiters of divide and conquer in history. Today's Turkey, Iran,
India, China, Iraq, with common cultural threads that bind them all inextricably
together, have over time contributed immensely toward world civilization and
humanity and as such have each earned their deserving statures in the family of
nations. This in and of itself when diligently considered should help these
nations envisage and plan their path to the future.

Epitomizing, ethnic identity and cultural
diversity and the cultural exchanges in between should be embraced, celebrated
and empowered in its historical context and on an international realm;
otherwise, ultra nationalism, albeit the Turkish, Arabic or other
inclinations-leads to extremism, terrorism, and self annihilations, where those
with the divide to conquer ulterior motives from within and without remain the
ultimate winners to devour the spoils. As Turkey continues to mature, its
acceptance of the Armenian Genocide, and embracing its multi-ethnic,
multi-lingual, and multi-cultural identity could only lead to the deserving
stature this nation deserves in the family of nations.